Photography

By Sharon Suzuki-Martinez

I love all animals and they inspire my prose and poetry, but there’s a special place in my heart for bugs and the creatures of the Sonoran desert: O’odham country. The lightweight, easy-to-use Nikon COOLPIX L820 is my go-to camera. All photos are available for use for a small fee, please inquire here.

Juvenile female Black Widow Spider
Great Golden Digger Wasp
Male Sonoran Bumblebee
Great Horned Owl
Dusky Flycatcher
Green Heron
Mourning Doves (O’odham: Hoohi) in Saguaro (Haashan)
Roadrunner (O’odham: Tadai)
Cicada Killer Wasp
Ashy Gray Ladybug in Desert Fountain Grass
Male Bronzed Cowbirds (the Lords of Dorkness)
Native Cactus bees (I surprised them)
Tepanec Long-horned bee (about the size of a flea)
Verdin (O’odham: Giisobi)

Spiny Softshell Turtle (my favorite turtle)
Another Spiny Softshell Turtle

Western Pygmy Blue butterfly (Smallest butterfly in North America)

Red and silver Ichneumon wasps and honey bee

Funereal Duskywing Skipper butterfly

Curve-billed Thrasher mother and chick (O’odham: Kudvich)

Monarch butterfly caterpillar

Mediterranean Praying Mantis

Harris’s Antelope Squirrel

Assassin Bug nymph

Rustic Sphinx Moth (looks like it carries a spirit on its back)

Apache Cicada

Female Mexican Amberwing Dragonfly

Small Milkweed Bug (enjoying the solitude of Desert Fountain Grass)

Inca Doves (O’odham: Gugu)

Cellar Spider mom with eggs

Hatching Green Lacewing larvae
Red-winged Blackbird and shadow
Male Hooded Oriole
Saguaro cacti in bloom
Tepanec Long-horned Bee

Roadrunner seen in the muted light of a 2017 solar eclipse.
Cactus Bee in cactus flower

Great Blue Heron

Juvenile Long-billed Dowitcher

Green Heron with a baby Red-eared Slider Turtle in beak. The bird eventually returned the turtle to the pond.

Baby Mediterranean Praying Mantis playing peek-a-boo.